My Beautiful Hippie (15 page)

We pressed on, through a Negro slum, where black faces appeared in windows and doors and little kids sat in rows on their stoops to watch us pass. The line of buses filled with inductees rolled slowly through town, enveloped by a barricade of policemen,
parading in a rectangular formation, their billy clubs at the ready. The faces of the inductees at the bus windows looked forlornly out at us. They were boys who had been called upon to serve their country, gazing out at their countrymen, who did not appreciate their sacrifice.

I wanted to break through the ranks of the cops, leap onto a bus, and start shoving those guys to the door, screaming, “Get out! Get out! They're sending you to your deaths!” Of course I couldn't. Of course I kept to the sidewalk.

A bus drew to a halt in front of the induction center, which had been covered with peace signs and three-foot-tall
HELL NOS
in bloodred poster paint. The police parted the demonstrators to make a clear pathway from the doors of the bus to the doors of the induction center. The demonstrators pumped their fists in unison, shouting, “Don't go! Don't go! Don't go!”

As the inductees filed by, dressed in trousers or jeans, all with short hair, some carrying overnight satchels, one of them grabbed the front of a protester's shirt and thrust his fist threateningly into the protester's face. Draftee and antidraft demonstrator were nose to nose, but the latter never flinched, still pleading, “Say no! You don't have to go!” The inductee gave him a final shove and moved on.

Bus after bus was unloaded right before our eyes, and not one of the inductees stepped out of line and joined our ranks. They believed they did have to go. They came from families who told them that if their country drafted them, they had to serve without questioning the reason or the morality. Not to serve meant shame, ingratitude for this country, and an unwillingness to protect freedom. Not to serve meant a guy was a yellow coward, a traitor—worst of all, a draft dodger, and such a label brought disgrace. Better to be a hero, dying in the rotting jungle of a country most of us had never heard of before the draft.

The buses had succeeded in safely delivering the draftees to the induction center, but they were going to have difficulty shipping them out. Beyond the building the protesters flooded the streets and faced the police battalion that had been guarding
the buses. Too late I remembered Dr. Harold's warning to stay in back. The demonstrators surged. As I was pushed forward by a wall of bodies behind me, I felt Martin's hand slipping from mine. Only our clawing fingertips held on to each other, and then Martin was gone, shoved in one direction, and me in the other. In one frenzied mass the demonstrators pressed into the policemen, who lifted their batons. I wanted to shelter my skull in my hands, but I needed them to grope and clutch the shoulders of people in front of me. If I stumbled now, I would be trampled.

An amazing thing happened. As the demonstrators rushed forward, the policemen walked, then ran, backward, holding their billy clubs horizontally before them in defense. We were pushing farther and farther into downtown Oakland, the police falling back one block, two, three. We outnumbered them, and they were scared. We were winning the city.

If we couldn't stop the buses from coming in, we could stop them from leaving. Protesters dismantled the fences of the poor people who lived there to build barricades in the street. Others let air out of the tires of cars. A car that was rumored to belong to a federal district attorney was overturned. People rolled huge cement tubs holding small trees into the street. Where was Martin in all this? How would I find my way out of there without him?

A Negro woman standing by her car pleaded with the demonstrators who blocked it: “I've got to get to work.” A kid about my age snatched at her keys. She slapped his face, and he recoiled. Another demonstrator tried to push people off her car. “Let the lady pass,” he urged them. She got into her car and started it, but she was going nowhere, blocked by humanity.

The paddy wagons roared onto the scene from the other direction. When protesters were clubbed, they fell to the asphalt and curled into fetal positions, cradling their skulls in their arms. People who resisted arrest were dragged to the paddy wagons by their feet or were walked between two or three policemen, choked by billy clubs held across their throats. Cuffed protesters ran away, were caught, broke away, were caught again, each time with a more violent response by the police.

Antiprotesters broke into fistfights with protesters and held on to their clothes, helping the police arrest them. Finally, I spotted Martin, down on his back, being dragged by the ankles by two policemen. I rushed to his rescue, clutching him by the armpits. “Let go, miss,” a policeman warned as he raised his billy club over my head. How much would it hurt? I wondered. Would it crack my skull? Would I ever be able to memorize Beethoven again?

My neck snapped back as I was yanked from behind by my hair, the billy club descending inches before me. I tried to twist around, fists swinging, as my captor held me fast.

“Stop struggling, Joanne!” Dan yelled at me. “I'm trying to save your life.”

Trembling in fear and rage, tears and snot streaming down my face, I screamed back at him, “I'm trying to save yours!” I was so mad at him for being the stupid brother he was, I slugged him in the chest. He gave my hair another hard yank.

“Break it up, you two!” snarled a policeman, his hands digging into our shoulders.

“She's my sister!” Dan explained.

The policeman let his hands drop to his sides with a slap. “Okay, then.”

Dan and Pete linked their arms in mine and escorted me to Pete's car, parked several blocks away. I went along sullenly but peacefully, relieved to be rescued. Every once in a while I looked back, hoping to catch sight of Martin. It seemed certain he'd been arrested and loaded into a paddy wagon.

When we got to Pete's car, a burgundy '64 Mustang, Pete flipped the front seat forward for me to climb into the back, and he and Dan settled in the front.

As Pete crept through traffic toward the Bay Bridge, Dan launched into his harangue. “Wait till I tell. Mommy's little girl committing treason and vandalism! You think those poor people can afford to replace their fences?”

“I never touched them.”

“What do you think your little friends accomplished today? Huh? Buncha Commie pinko fags.”

I stared out the window.

“Not a damn thing. Not a single one of those upstanding American boys fell out of line. Not a single one! It's kinda funny! All them hippie-type Commie pinko bed wetters running around doing nothing.”

“They were Cal students, most of them.”

“Students! Bullshit! Outside agitators the Communists sent over from China to overthrow the free world.” Dan turned around in his seat and leered at me. “I saw him, Joanne. Your hippie boyfriend. The same guy I caught you with in the park.”

“He's not my boyfriend.”

“Are you fucking him?”

“No!” My face flushed with his nasty talk.

“Do you already have a love-child-type bun in the oven?”

“Shut up!”

“I'm telling Mom to take you to the doctor to check you out. Make sure your snatch isn't crawling with hippie-scum diseases.”

I slid down and kicked him in the back through the seat of the car at the same time Pete jabbed an elbow into his ribs.

“Oof!” cried Dan, glaring at Pete. “What was that for?”

“You don't want to talk to your sister that way.”

“You're telling me how I should talk to my sister?”

“No, I'm telling you what way you
don't
want to talk to her.” Pete looked at me in the rearview mirror. “Easy on the car, Joanne. This is my baby.” He patted the steering wheel for emphasis.

“Sorry, Pete.” I wondered how my brother could have such a decent guy for a friend. “I'm telling our dad every word he said to me. I got major stuff on him to tell both my parents.”

Dan tried to sneer at me over the top of his seat, but he looked guilty. “Like what?”

“When you start finking on me, it will all come out.”

“You've got nothing on me.” Traffic was picking up now, and we were almost to the tollbooth. Dan dug through the change in his pocket and handed Pete two quarters.

“Maybe you got Mom and Dad fooled, but I'm on to your game.”

“My game? Oh, right.” He laughed nervously, indicating I had him just where I wanted him. Another couple of beats of silence passed. Rolling his eyes back at me, he tried to sound nonchalant. “Like what?”

“I know you're flunking out of your classes on purpose so you'll get drafted, and then Mom and Dad will have to let you enlist in the marines.”

He batted the air. “You're crazy.”

We drove through the city in silence, and when we reached Haight and Masonic, Dan asked Pete to pull over. “We gotta drop Joanne here. It will look suspicious if we walk in the house together.”

Pete veered toward the curb and stopped. Dan leaped out of the car and folded the seat forward. “Get out,” he barked at me.

“So you can get a head start telling on me? No way!” I crossed my arms.

“Cripes, Joanne. You know I won't tell if you don't.”

“Say you're sorry for all the dirty things you said to me. You know I don't do
it
.”

Dan looked down at the sidewalk.

Pete ducked to look out at Dan. “Apologize.”

“Dammit, Pete! Don't tell me what to do.”

“Fine.” Pete reached across the passenger seat, slammed the door, and laid an impressive patch as he pulled out. Out the back window, I saw Dan standing on the sidewalk, his mouth hanging open. I flashed him a peace sign; I couldn't resist. Pete drove me to the corner of Masonic and Frederick, leaving me less than a block to walk home.

“Thanks, Pete,” I said, bailing out.

He looked sheepish, staring down at his hands and mumbling, “He shouldn't talk to you that way.”

All afternoon I practiced scales and arpeggios, something mindless, something I could do with shaky fingers. Vivid scenes of the demonstration flashed in my head the march, the billy club over my head, Martin like a bug on his back about
to be smashed. If only there were a way for me to know he was okay.

The phone rang for the second time in five minutes. My mother answered it. “You have the wrong number,” she said. “Again!” She was making a pie, and when she set the receiver in place, her hand left a floury print on it. “Honestly! Looking for a guy named Phil Ochs.”

The third time Martin called, I dove for the phone. “Hello?” I asked anxiously.

“I got away,” he said breathlessly. “I gotta see you. I'm at the Tangerine Kangaroo.”

“Okay. I'll be there. Bye!”

I darted through the kitchen, explaining, “It was Suyu. I forgot Daddy's pants again.”

“Honestly, Joanne, if your head wasn't fastened on . . . Hold on, now. Get a few quarters out of my change purse.”

I turned around and went to her purse on the kitchen counter.

“Funny how the Lis never gave a reminder call before.”

“Oh, business is slow. Suyu wants to talk to me about master class.”

“Well, don't take forever.”

“I won't. Bye!”

I was out the back door in a flash and ran all the way to Haight and Ashbury. I rounded the corner and slammed into Martin's fierce hug. He was trembling.

“Thank God you're all right,” he murmured into my ear. “I saw you leave with your brother.”

I tried to push away, but he held on tighter, rocking us from side to side. Moments later, I tried again, but he still wouldn't let go.

“Martin! Let me see you.”

“No.”

I shoved away to look into his face. “God.” His left eye was swollen shut, bruised purple and green. A red welt crossed his throat.

He grinned and winced. “You should see the other guy.”

“I did. About three cops in combat gear. “

We went into the Tangerine Kangaroo and ordered tea at the counter. When we were settled at a table, Martin told me what had happened after I left. “They set me on my feet, and a cop got me into a choke hold with his billy club to escort me to a paddy wagon that was already packed. Then the cop guarding us got called away, so a bunch of us ran out. I just kept running until I was sure no one was chasing me.”

I reached up and touched his hair next to his swollen eye. “Does it hurt?”

He nodded. “Not like they're hurting in Nam.”

“We did it, didn't we? Stopped the war machine!” I spoke in a high-pitched, giddy voice that made Martin smile. “The government has got to listen to us now! Oakland looked like a war zone!”

“Except bombs weren't falling from the sky. Except children weren't running down the street with their backs on fire.”

“But we made a difference, didn't we? The war is going to end sooner because of us!”

Martin stirred his tea thoughtfully. “Not soon enough. A lot more people are gonna die over there first.”

I reached for his hand across the table. “My mom's going to wonder where I am. Sit and drink your tea. Maybe it will help you feel better.”

He squeezed my hand. “You're what makes me feel better, Joni.”

I didn't want to leave him, but I had to. I ran home and burst into the kitchen, the imprint of his battered face burning in my mind. Mom was taking her pie out of the oven, filling the kitchen with a delicious cinnamon-apple smell. She cocked her head and said, “Joanne,” like a rebuke.

I slapped my forehead. The dry cleaning! I made an about-face and charged out of the house again.

* * *

That night I couldn't sleep, with that cop's billy club descending, playing like a film loop in my mind. Had Dan really saved my life? Naw, the cops probably knew how to crack heads without killing people. I hated Dan for the filthy way he'd talked to me right in front of Pete. Like most girls my age, I thought of sex as the big mystery, something that would happen to me in the future. I wished that when it felt right for me to make love, it would be with Martin.